Pas De Trois
by Beloved-Stranger
Summary: "Uh, hi guys," Kate says as her son and his brothers barrel into the ER. "Where's the fire?" Part of the Clothesline AU - in which the Milligans are not dead and will hopefully stay that way. Also, there's pie. But, you know, when isn't there?
1. Can't Help Myself

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it. But, oh wow, if I did…

**Author****'****s****Rant:** So, fourth Clothesline fic! Who'da thunk it? Anyway, before we kick off, I'd like to explain the title, because I'm weird like that.

_Pas __de __trois_ is French (clearly) and is actually the name for a ballet dance with three dancers. Wikipedia can explain the finer details to you.

However, the reason I used it as the title for this fic (beyond the rather obvious digit) is because its also the name of a rather brilliant piece of music by Icehouse, which **you ****must ****all**** listen**** to** because its nifty and old-school and actually makes me think of _Blade__Runner_.

In fact, y'know what? Just listen to Icehouse full stop. Some of the good ones are _Paradise __Lost_ (clapping!), _Walls_, _Great __Southern __Land_, _Street __Café_ and _Don__'__t__ Believe __Anymore_.

Now, ONWARDS!

* * *

**Pas De Trois**

_Can't Help Myself**  
One**_

It hits him, a solid blow to his chest, every time he wakes up these days.

_You have two brothers. One of them is dying._

And then again, a second impact in a bittersweet effort to heal the first.

_You have two brothers. One of them has never met you._

Sam blinks slowly at the motel's water damaged ceiling, and takes stock as he listens with half an ear to the clock radio playing beside his bed and the sounds of Dean going about brushing his teeth. He sits up when he hears the expected – and obnoxious – gargle-and-spit finale, scrubbing his hair back and picking sleep from his eyes.

Dean emerges from the bathroom and the pair of them perform a silent changing of the guard; Sam heading in and hunting down his toothbrush and shaving kit while Dean finishes dressing and packs.

Attacking his pre-molars, he registers that its one of _those_ mornings; one of the focused, near silent ones where the mission is very clear, and even for Dean, there is no time for banter, no time for play, or even the gallows humour that Sam is beginning to dread. Later, maybe after a quick breakfast and reorientation on the road, things will loosen up and they'll come out of their respective shells, pried open by Dean's music and Sam giving directions when they hit a spread of back roads.

Or maybe it'll be sooner. Maybe it'll be…

"Dean," he shouts around a mouthful of minty foam, "phone's going!"

Dean sticks his head around the bathroom door, Sam's cell in hand. He hasn't answered it.

"What is this crap?" his brother demands, the phone filling the bathroom with _Dani__ California_.

"Its not crap," Sam slurs around his toothpaste, then gives up and spits. "It's the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Give it."

Dean hands the phone over between thumb and forefinger as though RHCP might be contagious and Sam answers without bothering to check the number. He's got a feeling he knows who it is anyway.

And sure enough…

"I'm having a total moment, Sam."

Sam grins, exchanging the expression with his brother before Dean goes back to packing. "Morning, Peggy."

"No, really," she insists, "a total, _total_ moment."

Sam closes the door to the bathroom, looking for a little privacy. "What'd Marty do now?"

"He tried to write is what happened," she growls. "I had the dialogue perfect – _perfect_, Sam – and then he goes and puts his big fat B-movie foot in it."

"What was it this time? Fart jokes?"

"Chauvinist crap about a woman's aim with a shotgun being about as good as her driving."

Sam grins. "Take him to a firing range and prove him wrong." He knows for a fact she can.

"Don't tempt me," she snarls. "Is it too much to ask to land a job with someone who has even a smidgen of talent and isn't a douche bag? I mean _really_?"

"Might be pushing you're luck there, Peg. It's Hollywood, after all."

"I'm not picky!" she exclaims. "I'd settle for one! Talented douche bag or talentless nice-guy – I don't mind, just not the double neg, for the love of God! I'm trying to rescue a movie here!"

Sam smiles as he wipes the last of the toothpaste from his face and starts applying shaving gel. "And I have full confidence that you'll do it," he tells her.

"We'll see," she mutters darkly. "Anyway, how're you guys doing?"

In all honesty, Sam would rather talk about Peggy's crusade to rescue _Hell__ Hazers __II_ from B-gradedom, but part of the girl's self-assumed role since she met them seems to include Winchester emotional upkeep as well as feeding them and putting an occasional roof over their heads. And really, there's no denying Peggy Patcher; her mother raised her to be a force of nature when she's roused.

"We're okay," he tells her, pausing as he wets his razor.

"Sam."

"We are! Look, we're not even two days out from Windom. Dean's been…he's been focused, but nothing off the charts. The sooner we get there…"

"The better he'll be, I know."

There's something in her tone that makes him pause, putting down his razor. "Peggy? You know what we had to go right then, right?"

"Well, yeah. Sam, if I found out I had a brother – well, _another_ one, although really six is enough to be going on with – I'd be across the _globe_ if that was where he was. I get it, honey, really, I do."

She hesitates for a second, and he knows she'll be pacing in her kitchen, biting her lip. He pictures the scene in his head; the light streaming through her big living room windows, her cat winding around her pale legs, a mug steaming on the bench beside her, filling the room with the scent of tea and honey. Maybe she's still in her pajamas this early, curly dark hair flat on one side of her head and fluffy on the other.

Sam smiles, but it fades when she speaks again.

"And I know…I know you feel like you need to get there now. That he needs to be protected…"

Sam abandons shaving and sits on the edge of the bath, wiping the gel from his jaw, sighing as he does so. "We're cursed, Peggy. Our family is just…we're…it's like we're magnets for supernatural disasters. Freaks love to fuck with us. And after all that's happened, I think Dean's terrified that if we don't get there now something will go wrong. Something will happen to Adam, and Kate."

"Sam, you can't believe that," Peggy says softly. "You're not cursed. No, no, I don't believe that."

She sounds so determined. Like sheer force of belief will keep away the bad things, the bad endings. If that worked, Sam thinks, his mother never would've burnt up on the ceiling of his nursery. His mother had believed in angels…

"I'm not seeing any other explanation, sweetheart," he murmurs, the endearment slipping unbidden across his tongue.

There's a sort of mutual intake of breath, and then it's gently ignored. Now is not the time… it's never the time.

"Well," she tells him instead, "just because you can't see it, Samwise, doesn't mean its not there. There are still mysteries in the world, you know."

He knows.

_A white elephant towering over him in a yellow field, the sky endless and dark overhead._

"_I know you…"_

"_Yes, you do."_

Sam smiles, knowing she'll hear it in his voice.

"Yeah," he murmurs, "I guess there are."


	2. We Can Get Together

**AN:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed and faved - and special thanks to Pikouaencore who caught me out on my spelling. And now, gratuitous Peggy angst.

* * *

_We Can Get Together**  
Two**_

Peggy is restless.

She sits at her writing desk, pages and pages of HH2's script scattered about for editing and repair – and she notices that the place could really do with a vacuum. Next minute, she's mowing back and forward with the vacuum cleaner while her big black tomcat, Muss, sits on the back of the couch and glowers balefully at the machine.

She's been doing this a lot lately. It's always been difficult for her to sit still when she's worried. It's not quite as bad as Eric's chemo – she was just about out of her tree for most of that year – but there have been times when it's felt close.

There was…there was one point, in May, when she tried to call Sam on his birthday. The call went straight to voicemail…and did for the next two days. She tried Dean, but he wasn't picking up, and then his phone started going to voicemail as well.

She went quietly out of her mind with worry, to the point where even _Marty_ called and asked what was wrong. Lou tried her damnedest to get it out of her, but her green-eyed boys, her heroes, were her secret to keep.

And so she just kept calling until Sam finally picked up on the night of May 4th. Sitting curled up a corner of her living room, absurdly wedged between one of the tall windows that face the city and the end of her writing desk, she listened with baited breath…and then made a complete fool of herself by bursting into tears when she heard his voice.

"Peggy? _Peggy_, oh God, I'm so sorry, I meant to call you! Oh no, please, Peg, please don't cry…"

But she couldn't help herself. "Th-thought something had ha-happened," she gasped out. "I just…g-give me a minute…"

"I'm so sorry, Peggy," he murmured, completely contrite and sounding a little ragged around the edges himself, "we – we had a difficult job and my phone…got damaged. I should have thought…I'm sorry."

He sounded miserable, and she forgave him of course, because it wasn't like it was something he could have helped. He never forgot to call after that, though, and so she's never had to worry so hard since then.

But this… this is _different_. She's never felt the distance so keenly, maybe because she's never been so aware of their immediate activities, always hearing about their various adventures after the fact. Now, she knows they'll be passing through the north-western edge of Nebraska today and over the corner of South Dakota to get to Minnesota. She knows things have been tense between the boys, that they've been arguing about their father and why Adam was kept secret from them. She knows they disagree about revealing their existence to him in case something happens.

_In case something happens._

It always comes back to that, doesn't it? She and Sam won't move on each other, because he'll always have to go and save someone else and _something __might__ happen_. He might not come _back_…

She shoves the vacuum viciously back and forwards over the area rug around her coffee table and manages to jar her elbow when the vacuum cleaner's head whacks the table's leg with especial force. Muss hisses reproachfully and leaps from the couch to the dinning table, his back a ridge of spiky black fur. Swearing, Peggy drops the vacuum's hose and jabs the off button with her toe. She stands rubbing her elbow and just _breathes_ for a moment.

"You're being an idiot," she whispers aloud into the eerie quiet. "You're being a complete idiot and worse, you're being selfish, now _stop __it_."

It doesn't put a lid on the worry, but it calms other, less gentle, parts of her.

She shakes her head, forces herself to put music on – Dean's playlist on her iPod – and makes herself a pot of tea. Picking up the phone, she gets Marty on the line and puts him on speaker. The script is spread before her and firmly gripping her red pen, she gets back to work.

* * *

**AN2:** Girl just can't cut a break. I'm so mean.


	3. Walls

**AN:** Lol, okay, to the anonymous reviewer who doesn't know Peggy: she's not a canon character.

Hollywood Babylon is one of my favorite episodes, and so I did a rewrite of it with the addition of Peggy Patcher as an intro to the Supernatural land of fiction. It's a writing crutch, I know, but it was fun. Reviewers on A Hollywood Hazing wanted to see more of Peggy, so I kept her in contact with the boys and kept on writing…now she kinda has a plot arc. It's wacky.

In any case if you want to see more of her too, all the Clothesline stories are listed on my profile page in order.

And now, as a follow up to the gratuitous Peggy angst, we have plot-furthering obligatory WINCHESTER ANGST.

* * *

_Walls**  
Three**_

By the time they roll into Windom, they still can't decide what to do about Adam, or what to tell him. Do they lurk in the shadows, try and lay down ground work around his school, his house, in his car to keep him safe… or do they come out of the woodwork and tell him who they are.

And if… if they do tell him, how _much_ do they tell him? 'We're your brothers' or 'we're your brothers and _we__ hunt __monsters_'?

"We'll get run off," Dean mutters, pulling into the motel car park. "It'll freak him out, ruin his memories of Dad and his mom'll get a freaking restraining order against us. And won't that be the perfect way to bring Hendrickson down on our heads?"

"Dean, look, he's our _brother_; we can't just sit on the sidelines like a pair of tools! You said it yourself, he's a kid; he needs to be protected –"

"And Dad did that, Sam," Dean says, turning the car off and giving Sam a look, "by keeping him out of our world. The stuff we encounter on a job would eat him for breakfast."

"It's not like we're going to be taking him on jobs with us, Dean."

"No, but say he believes us, if we tell him about what we do. Say he decides he wants to make his dad proud, huh, and go hunting with his brothers. We say no, like Dad used to, and he takes it into his _I__'__m __invincible_ teenage skull to go it alone and try to hunt anyway. What then, Sam?"

Sam just looks back at him, nettled.

"I'm not having his blood – my brother's blood – on my hands," Dean says, low and rough. He turns away and throws his door open, climbing from the car. "I'm going to Hell as it is. No need to add fuel to the fire."

"You're not going to Hell, Dean," Sam says fiercely, following him out of the car. They stand on opposite sides of her, watching each other over her glossy roof. "And Adam's not going to die. Not because of us. But I don't… I don't want to turn into Dad. I want to be honest with him, not keep secrets because we decide it's for his own good."

Dean's mouth hardens, jaw tightening, and Sam leans towards him, just as determined and typically earnest.

"Keeping him in the dark about all this is just as likely to hurt him as telling him, Dean." He shakes his head, looking down at those damn dinner-plate hands of his, folded on the car's roof. "I hated that Dad lied to us. Kept stuff from us. I hate what it's done to our family. I've been as honest with Peggy as you've let me be and… and she's… she's our friend."

"Well, she's _my_ friend," Dean feels he has to interject. "I don't know what she is to you, but that kiss–"

"Not the time, Dean," Sam mutters, "never the time. Look, my point is, being honest with Peggy has kept her as a friend. She's someone we can trust. I want that with Adam, and with Kate. I want to trust them, but they have to trust us first. That means being honest. And it means teaching them how to protect themselves."

"They won't need protection if we keep out of their lives," Dean says, and even he can hear the stubbornness in his voice. "And we can protect them without telling them about – all of that."

"You know that's not true," Sam says softly. "The stuff we hunt comes after everyday people. It hurts them, kills them… And I'd never forgive myself if something happened to Adam, or Kate, because we didn't teach them how to keep themselves safe, _really_ safe."

They stand, unspeaking for a moment. Then Sam continues, very, _very_ softly, "You were so desperate to get here, so worried. I thought this was why."

They're talking themselves round in circles now, but Dean knows that Sam's right. Knows it, but doesn't like it. There isn't much he wouldn't give to let Sam go back – back to Stanford, with Jess, to have the sweet little life he had set out for himself.

It wouldn't have worked, in the long run – all of Azazel's chosen had been consumed by the shadow of Cold Oak eventually – but if he could, he'd give his little brother a home, and a real life… Maybe, after he's gone, Sam will grow a lick of sense and have a life like that – one full of sunlight, and smiles, and the scent of Peggy's cooking. She loves Sam, even if Sam doesn't seem to know if he loves her yet, so Dean knows she'll help him, and look after him.

For Adam… for Adam he wants sunlight too, unbroken by all the dark, miserable crap that's dogged him and Sam all their lives. He wants it _so __much_, but…

But Sam's right – again – and this time it stings so that Dean almost can't stand the silent appeal on his brother's face.

He clears his throat and looks down.

"Alright," he says, scuffing one boot against the asphalt of the Kelsey Manor Motel's parking lot. "Alright, Sam, we'll do it." He looks up, holds his brothers eyes sternly with his own. "But we'll do this my way, Sam, clear?"

"What's your way?"

"Slowly. We're not just going to drop all this crap in his lap at once. We need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're his family first. After that… after that, we'll see. We'll see, Sam," he says, voice firm when Sam opens his mouth to protest.

"Okay, okay. Fine. So, step one then?"

Dean steps away from the car, going to the trunk and beginning to unload their stuff. "Step one," he says, throwing Sam his backpack, "is simple. We're going to their house."

Sam's eyebrows go up. "Just like that? No scoping out, no planning, no tests?"

Dean scoffs. "Oh, there're gonna be tests. And scoping out and planning. We're just gonna be subtle about it."

"'Subtle'? Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?"

Dean cracks a smile for the first time in twenty-four hours.


	4. Send Somebody

**AN:** I suck, I know. In my defense RL is taking no prisoners right now, and I'm getting an arsekicking of the highest order from my Anthro essay. Also, my Godson arrives in T-minus 13 days. My mind is blowing as we speak.

* * *

_Send Somebody**  
Four**_

Dean's bravado gets him as far as the corner of _13__th__Street_ and Lakeview Avenue.

"It's a sign," he deadpans at Sam as they continue down the street and park across from number 18.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Oh no," he deadpans back. "Whatever shall we do?"

"…turn around and go for pie?"

Sam gives him a flat look and gets out of the car. Dean follows more slowly, casting a wary glance up and down the street. He checks the test kit is still tucked securely in his jacket pocket, then follows Sam across the street, deliberately not hurrying to catch up with Sam's big freaking sasquatch-strides.

The house itself is nothing out of the ordinary; two story, dark weatherboards, lawns that'll need cutting in a week and flowerbeds that aren't exactly orderly so much as enthusiastic. There's a blue Holden sedan in the drive with a set of cat's foot prints across the lid of its trunk and needles from the surrounding pines under its tires.

They get to the door step and – Sam is fidgeting, like he's five again and it's their first day at that little Midwest grade school Dean can't even remember the name of, but it was Sam's very first day of school ever and he'd been twitchy as anything just like now. Dean, happy to be distracted, finds himself smiling as Sam wriggles sideways, hands dug into his jeans pockets, then messes his over-long hair, smooths it back, messes it again…

"Dude, are you fidgeting?"

"No," Sam shoots back, but he stills, taking a preparatory breath. He'd been kinda gung ho about this, and Dean feels a little better that he's not the only one on the verge of freaking out (well, freaking out _further_).

Dean smiles, and reaches for the bell. But just before he can press it, there's a _monumental_ howl from the bay window next to them. He and Sam leap about a foot upwards and two to the left.

"Jesus Christ," Dean says fervently, on hand gripping the porch railing. Sam just stares.

The big shaggy mongrel in the window stares back with big brown Labrador eyes then throws back its head and lets out another _bwhooooooooooo!_

From inside the house comes a yell of "Sorry!"

The mongrel howls again followed by what sounds like a rather aggressive apology – "SORRY!"

The boys watch as the dog gets down from the window – there's the sound of skittering claws from inside – and then the front door judders as something weighty collides with it. A woman yells again; "Sorrel, god damn it, _come __here_!"

Dean exchanges a look with his brother and the two of them barely have time to draw breath before the door is flung open and they come face to face with Kate Milligan.

Or rather, they see the top of her head. She's currently bent over, one hand holding the door while the other grips the collar of the rambunctious brown dog, who gazes at the Winchesters with a huge, open-mouthed grin on its face. The thing looks happy enough, but whether that's a friendly welcome or fiendish glee, they can't tell.

Kate, assured of her grip on the beast, looks up at them and offers a rueful smile. "Hi, I'm really sorry about him, he's just a little…excitable." She raises her eyebrows in a question. "Can I help you?"

Dean can feel his brother's eyes on him, but isn't really paying any attention – he feels like his chest is caving in, struck by the woman looking expectantly back at them. Kate Milligan is at least forty, but she's still beautiful, and still…

_God, she just looks so much like Mom._

Dean feels like he's seeing a ghost, or a doppelgänger, or _something_.

In a terrifying flash of insight, he suddenly understands why his father would be so drawn to this woman, why he would throw caution to the wind and become involved with her.

He realizes with a jolt, that Sam is speaking, saying his name.

"Kate Milligan?"

Kate smiles. "Yeah."

"I'm Sam…I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother, Dean."

Kate's smile has fallen down – first the left corner, then the right – and she stares at them in confusion. "Winchester…?"

Sam nods, that earnest expression of his drawing his eyebrows up and softening the planes of his face. Dean sees it only peripherally, but knows it off by heart.

Kate's eyes move back and forth between them, and though her hand is limp upon Sorrel's collar, the dog makes no move from her side and stays quiet, as though sensing the new tension between them.

Dean finds his voice and drops this into that tension: "We think you knew our dad."

Kate stands straight, letting go of the dog altogether – Sorrel whines softly – and takes a deep, bracing breath. They watch her watch them, her eyes combing their features and picking out the pieces of their father there.

"I knew John," she says. "I think you'd better come in."

* * *

**Authorial****Note:** if you want a better idea of what Sorrel looks like try this link, just take out the spaces (http:/ /i4. photobucket. com/ albums /y110/hotpinklou/ ).


	5. Paradise Lost

**Authorial****Note-Type****Thing:** Keep in mind, this takes place during July of 2007; Adam's birthday is in September, so he's two months out from his 17th birthday. Now, I'm not all up on how it happens in the States, but by my guesstimation that puts him in…ooh…his second to last year of high school? Junior year, right? Or rather, this would be the summer before his junior year. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong – I'd rather you do that than let me flaunt my stupidity all over the interwebs.

Man, this is a stupidly long note just to establish this kid's stages of development.

* * *

_Paradise Lost**  
Five**_

You know those moments where time stands still and your vision tunnels and the sound goes and all you can hear is your heart pounding and this high, whining noise reminiscent of malfunctioning audio equipment?

That was Adam, three hours ago.

Now, time has wound back up to regular speed, his vision has its pan and tilt functions back and the whining has faded out.

Although his heart is still struggling a little.

Every time he thinks of those pages, folded up in the back of his wallet, it picks up its pace and does something to his face, because Denise has been giving him looks all day. She benched him half an hour ago, luckily before Toby could call him on it and throw him off the field. For a friendly game between teammates, Toby's taking this frighteningly seriously. Adam thinks it might be the rumor about their school being scouted this season – although, soccer scouts in Windom? _Please_. Toby's dreaming.

Adam squints against the afternoon sun, sitting back on his hands in the grass and wincing a little – he can practically _feel_ himself breaking out in a whole new crop of freckles. He shouldn't have tempted fate and worn a damn wife-beater. He's sitting on the edge of the field – which is really a spread of uninterrupted grass by the lake – watching his friends and teammates chase and laugh and tumble after an old soccer ball. He hears it all, sees it, feels the sun and the breeze and smells the grass and the lake and his own sweat but…

He lets himself get a little lost for a moment, thoughts going back to his wallet, just over there in the backpack with a clean t-shirt and deodorant (because Denise refuses to put up with sitting with a bunch of reeking guys while they have lunch at Cousin Oliver's). The pages – all three of them – are folded up there, full of his father's distinctive, boxy handwriting and bursting with strange and terrible secrets…

_Jan 5 1990  
3 graves opened in Windom MN. Bodies missing/pieces taken. Leaving the boys with Jim and taking a look._

And that incendiary entry's not even the half of it.

God, his brain is just on _fire _right now.

Adam flops back on the grass, closing his eyes and flinging one arm over his face to block out the glaring sun.

_Jan 7 1990  
Met with Dept. Joe Barton. He's curious about the case. Puzzled and disturbed as the rest, but curious. He got me a look at what remains they have, and the gravesites. Bodies look like they've been ripped apart, although one retrieved limb has tooth marks. Human measurements, but the coroner pointed out human jaws don't have the strength necessary to crack a human radius, so; ghouls, near as I can figure. Now is just a matter of tracking the little fucker –_

"Hey."

Adam shifts his arm back onto his forehead and squints up at Denise. She's sitting on the grass beside him, eyes soft with concern.

"Hey," he mutters back.

"So." She prods his thigh with her bare foot. "You've been weird all day. Wanna tell me why? You have a fight with your mom?"

Adam knows if it were Toby asking this kind of shit he'd have punched the guy. They're friends, but Adam's just not in the mood right now, and Toby's got his bitch-pants on today. _Denise_ though…he knows she won't push if he tells her to let it go. Which is why he sighs, sits up and says, "Nah, s'just… It's about my dad, Den."

Denise's face drops. "Shit, Adam, I'm sorry. Is it…I mean, good news? Bad news?"

Adam shakes his head. "Weird news."

Denise frowns. "Like what? I mean, did he call, or something? Say where he was?"

"No. I know it's like, one in a million that he'll call – when does he ever call, right?" he adds, not a little bitterly. "I just… I found something that he wrote down – pages from a journal, y'know? And…"

He's not sure he can bring himself to say it. It's such a huge betrayal for his dad to keep all this from him and Mom, but somehow another kind of betrayal in confessing this to Denise…to someone who isn't family.

But fuck that. Denise is his best friend – his _best_ – and he remembers when they were fourteen and Den climbed through his window crying her eyes out because her parents were splitting. She never told anyone else that unless she had to, and he was the first she'd told. She practically lived at their house that year. She's the only one apart from his mom that'll get it.

He feels her hand on his shoulder and takes a breath. "Den…I…I think I have brothers."

Denise stares at him, eyes wide. "You – your dad – oh my god, _Adam_." Her hand tightens on his shoulder and she leans closer to him, voice low. "Are you sure?"

He shakes his head. "Not really – I mean it's kind of a vague reference, but –"

"I'm telling ya, man, it's a _sixty-five_."

"And _I__'__m_ telling _you_, y'don't know _shit_ about cars."

Adam and Denise look up, startled, as Mike and Rasheed make their way off the field. Toby is stomping behind them, looking furious. His side probably lost, and now everyone else on his side is failing to care about the fact.

"It's a sixty-five!" Mike insists stridently. "Adam, help me out here."

Adam gamely ignores the ache in his chest and Denise's slightly-less-than-a-death-grip on his shoulder and says, "What's a sixty-five?"

"The unbelievably sweet ride we saw parked up on your corner on the way over here," Rasheed says, before adding to Mike, "only it ain't a sixty-five, you numb-nuts, because you don't. Know. Shit."

Mike opens his mouth to retaliate but Denise manages to interject. "What ride? Me and Adam didn't see it."

Rasheed shrugs. "We got here after you, remember? It musta arrived between you guys leaving Adam's place and us passing it on the way here. Either way, that thing is just – I don't even know – I'd give my left nut for something like that. True classic muscle car."

"Classic?" Adam asks. "What, like, a Mustang? Pontiac?"

"Uh-uh. Black Chevy. Freaking _hot_."

Adam goes very still.

"It might not be him," Denise cautions, very softly.

A laugh makes it shaky way out of his throat. "How many owners of a black Chevy Impala do you know that would park outside my house, Den?"

"Hold up." Rasheed looks puzzled. "How'd you know it was an Impala?"

Adam's already on his feet, grabbing his backpack and pulling on his clean shirt, yanking on his shoes. "It's my dad's."

Denise is on her feet too. "Do…do you want me to come with you?"

He throws her a grateful look but shakes his head. "Probably not a good idea, Den." He gives her a quick hug and begins jogging to the road.

"Hey," Mike calls. "Hey, what year is it?"

"Sixty-seven, Mike!" he calls back, managing to smile. "You don't know shit, buddy!"

The smile's gone by the time he rounds the corner. It takes him ten minutes to jog home from the park, and yet when he gets there, he stands for five minutes more and just stares at his own front door.

You know those moments where time stands still and your vision tunnels and the sound goes and all you can hear is your heart pounding and this high, whining noise reminiscent of malfunctioning audio equipment?

That's Adam, right now.

* * *

**AN:** I don't even know how I belted this out so quick. I think it might have something to do with Sir-Mercutio-McHuffer though - she lives in my area, and besides which, I've heard some terrifying things from her work buddies about her and inventive uses of superglue and staplers. Anyway, lemme know whatcha think.


	6. All The Way

**Authorial ****Note**** Thing:** Okay, so its been a while - but to be honest I've been a little more interested in my godson and helping his mum out with his awesome little self! Also, love and kisses to my beta-type-gal, Sir Mercutio! This chapter was a bitch to get write, but I'm mostly happy with how it turned out. Let me know if you see any hinky bits or whatever.

* * *

_All The Way**  
Six**_

Dean wants to not be bitter, but this is just…how is he supposed to deal with this?

The picture in front of him is right out of a collection of Kodak moments; Adam, maybe thirteen years old, stands proudly holding a trout by the hook in its lip with John's arm around his thin shoulders. They're both grinning, smiles terribly white against the amber and gold of the Autumnal lakeside where they stand.

Dean swallows hard.

Beside it is another of Adam as a baby, chubby and bright-eyed, and then one of John with his arm around Kate…almost a perfect mirror image of the picture of John and Mary that Dean still carries in his wallet.

He gets his face under control though, because Kate is sitting six feet behind him, curled on her sofa like she's cold, with Sorrel is sprawled beneath the coffee table, all anxious brown eyes. Sam is occupying the living room's lone armchair adjacent to the sofa, watching as Kate spreads a birth certificate and a series of letters across the coffee table.

"We last heard from him… God, summer of '05." A small smile tries vainly to find its way onto her face. "Around about this time actually, so…so two years ago." The smile fails to find purchase. "He –"

"Taught Adam to drive. Yeah," Dean says, turning to her and scrubbing a hand over his face. "We know."

She looks bewildered, eyes moving from Sam to Dean and back again.

Sam says gently, "It's how we found you. There was tape in with some of Dad's old stuff…when we saw you guys on it we went digging through his papers and found an address." He glances at Dean, who finds himself regarding his own feet. "It was a long shot, but we knew we had to come."

Kate nods, and this time the smile lingers a little longer. "I'm glad you have. And…and I mean, this makes sense; he was always so good with Adam – like he'd done it before… I thought maybe he'd had children and lost them –" Dean feels a bone-deep flinch, and knows there's more than one way to lose your child. "– but I could never bear to ask."

Dean clears his throat. "Yeah, well…you called him about Adam in '02, right? Not a great year for our family dynamics." He gets a small smile out, hoping it doesn't look as bitter as it feels.

Sam looks uncomfortable as fuck – 2002 was his first year at Stanford. John would've found out about Adam weeks after Sam ran off to college.

Dean had separated from his father not long after; John supposedly stewing in his own company while Dean spent two months hunting either solo or with Jim Murphy. After that…they hunted together, but without Sam around being in each other's company felt…strange. Sam was such an integral part of their lives – as constant as night and day and the turning seasons. Not having him around all of a sudden left a gaping void in Dean's life. He's no longer sure if John had felt that same void, or whether his father had simply filled it with Adam.

It's painful to think about, and so Dean shoves it away, instead listening as Sam explains haltingly about his flight to Stanford and John's disapproval. He can see further confusion on Kate's face, and remembers that Adam has a conditional scholarship – she probably offered to throw him party when she found out, instead of just throwing him out.

"The family business was…important to dad," Sam hedges. "He could be kind of narrow-minded about stuff that distracted from it."

Kate shakes her head – not disagreeing, just disbelieving. "He was never like that with us," she murmurs. "God, there's just so much we never knew…"

Dean is kept from muttering 'lady, you have no idea', by Sorrel shooting out from under the coffee table and setting up another _bwhoooooooooooooo!_ at the front door.

Kate gets to her feet, touching her cheeks as though she's been crying – she certainly looks fragile enough. "Oh, that'll be Adam," she says, and Dean's stomach somehow manages to both flip-flop and clench at the same time.

Sam finds his eyes, and the look of breathless panic on his brother's face is…there is so much there Dean can't even begin to decipher that look. He knows he's wearing one very similar.

Without knowing quite why, Dean follows Kate out into the hallway, and then comes to an abrupt halt as she opens the front door.

Adam Milligan stands on the front step, wrangling Sorrel the way Kate had and smiling at the dog's enthusiastic welcome. He's tall, Dean thinks, and lanky the way Sam was at that age. He's a lot like his mother – same hair and eyes and voice – but when he looks up and catches sight of Dean, there is something in his face that screams John Winchester. If asked, Dean's not even sure he could put a name to the feature, but that doesn't change the fact that its there.

Then Adam hesitates, cautious were John would have been forward, and casts a questioning glance at his mother before focusing back on Dean. "Uh, hi," he says.

Kate puts a hand on her son's shoulder and says, with great care, "Adam, this is Dean. He's here with his brother Sam and…"

She trails off and looks a little helplessly at Dean, as though asking his permission. He hears Sam approaching, feels him standing at Dean's right shoulder. He makes sure to meet the boy's eyes.

"We're John Winchester's sons," Dean says. "Your brothers."

Adam's face fills with surprise and…relief?

"Yeah," the kid says, "I know."

* * *

Adam sits in the middle of the sofa and feels like he's facing a firing squad in his own living room.

Sam – who is ridiculously tall and looks nothing like Dad until you see his jaw tighten and his eyes flash – sits in the lone armchair while his mom sits at right angles on the loveseat and Dean, like his father's ghost, right down to the voice, stands by the bay window and watches him with cautious eyes. They _all_ watch him really, and Adam fights the urge to squirm.

"Okay, so, ah… I was going through some stuff in the attic –" His mother's eyebrows go up. "– I was curious," he defends. "We hadn't seen him in so long and…"

_And now he's gone._

Later, he knows he'll cry. He'll break down because his father is dead, even if Sam and Dean haven't said it. He can see it in their faces when they talk about him, hear it in their voices. His mother knows it too; she won't meet his eyes whenever John's name is said.

"And I missed him," he settles on. "I wanted to find some of the photo albums we have up there, from when I was younger."

"From when you met him?" Sam asks, and Adam nods.

"Yeah, but I was going through one of them and I found some stuff, like pages out of journal, or notes or something – and they were in his handwriting. It…it mentioned 'leaving the boys with Pastor Jim'. In Blue Earth, I think? And just the way it was phrased…I kinda figured he meant his kids."

He turns to meet his mother's eyes. "It was dated January of 1990, Mom. That's nine months before…" He doesn't need to finish the sentence. He can see his mother's face changing, crumpling with the knowledge that evidence of John's family was in their attic the whole time, all these years and…and…

"Adam," Sam says, "what else was in those entries? What else did he talk about?"

Adam shrugs. "Not much, really, just some historical stuff about Windom and meeting mom. And the case he was working on."

And oh, isn't that last bit just _flammable_?

Dean's eyes, already fixed on him, narrow and suddenly it's like being in the crosshairs of a laser beam. Or a high powered rifle. Or, fuck it, an _impending__ nuclear __event_. Adam wants to curl up, make himself a smaller target, but doesn't. Instead he stiffens his shoulders and meets Dean's stare and lets him know with a look that, yeah, he knows, okay? And either their dad was a freaking psycho or… or he doesn't know what, but he's going to figure this shit out.

* * *

They stay for what is possibly the most awkward dinner in the history of awkward family dinners.

At least the food is good.

Dean doesn't say anything in front of Kate when John's 'case' is brought up, and he can see the relief in Adam's face.

It's strange, he reflects. He and Sam came here with the intention of protecting Adam from their world – their father's world – and here Adam is protecting his mother from it. Not for the first time, Dean wonders if there's some kind of cosmic conspiracy to fuck up his plans for his family. Or just fuck up his family in general.

In between the small talk – fucking _small __talk_ – the silence is oppressive and Dean wishes there were more women in this room, though not for his usual reasons. Women know how to talk. They know how to fill up a room with chatter and spin a conversation out of nothing. Sam's trying, but however much of girl he is already he's just not cutting it.

Actually, you know what? Forget all the other broads, he just wants _Peggy_ to be here, because she gets how weird and terrifying this all is and she seems to be good at dealing uncommunicative males – after all, she deals with him and Sam on a semi-regular basis without much trouble. At the very least she and Kate could talk about…something.

On second thought she knows way too many of his embarrassing stories…

They finish desert, and Dean manages to honestly compliment Kate on her strawberry and rhubarb pie.

"I'm just glad I've been working nights at the moment, otherwise I wouldn't have had time today to put this together."

Sam looks up at this, eyes finding Adam. "You're by yourself at night?"

Adam shrugs. "It's okay. I stay with Denise."

"They've been best friends since kindergarten," Kate puts in. "If I recall correctly it started when Denny spilled her juice on Adam and had to say sorry when he cried."

"Mom!"

"What?"

Dean exchanges a look with his bigger-little brother across the table and finds he's not the only one smiling into his pie.

And just like that, it's not so bad.

* * *

Dean finds his way out onto the back porch afterwards. He eases himself onto one of the deck chairs. He feels about a hundred years older than he should do.

Around him, crickets are singing in the warm air and birds are settling for the night, calling to each other as they roost. In the background he can hear Sam helping Kate with the dishes, their voices low and warm against the soft bump-and-clunk of the pots in the sink. Looking out across the lawn, he catches sight of a black and white moggy – the culprit that left the trail of pawprints over Kate's car, no doubt. Dean smiles.

There's a buzz from his left pocket, and when he fishes his phone out it's to find a text from…

_Peggy: 'Hey, how goes it?'_

He wants to reply with 'wish you were here', but she'll worry – is probably still worrying about them – and so he just types:

_Dean: 'Not bad as it culd be. We stayd 4 dinner. Kate makes awsum strwbrry & rubarb pie. Sams helpin w dishes.'_

_Peggy: 'Lol, pie huh? Is that a challenge? Whats Adam like?'_

_Dean: 'Good kid, I think. Long story tho, call u later?'_

_Peggy: 'Sounds like a plan. Luv peace n chckn grease.'_

_Dean: 'So mature.'_

_Peggy: 'Coming frm u that means almst nothing.'_

Dean snickers.

"Good joke?"

He looks up in time to see Adam slipping out of the ranch-slider.

"Good friend," he responds, quickly wishing Peggy a good night and putting his phone back in his pocket. "What's up?"

Adam shrugs, lingering by the door, and Dean reminds himself this kid isn't even seventeen yet. When he looks up at Dean, it's shocking all over again; he looks like Sam at the moment, all earnest, determined eyes and long features.

"Thanks for not telling Mom," he says.

Dean nods. "Wanna explain to me why I shouldn't?"

"Mom's strong," he says. "Nurses have to be, but this is personal stuff and she's never been good at dealing with that."

Dean raises his eyebrows. Says, "You don't think it's up to her to decide what she can deal with?" and then feels like a total hypocrite, because wasn't this what Sam was preaching all the way up here?

Adam looks away again, sighing. "Look, when my grandpa died, it was like the world was caving in."

He slumps into the chair opposite Dean and Sorrel, who has been lying under the deck table, gets up and puts his head in Adam's lap. The boy rubs the big brown dog's ears.

"I think… I mean, it was that year that Mom called Dad about me, but I think it was Grandpa dying that did it and not me begging her to."

"You think she needed the support?"

"Yeah."

"You don't think you could support her through this?"

Adam snorts. "What? Support her through finding out that the guy she was half in love with was some kind of monster hunter? Or thought he was?"

Despite the skepticism, there's a question in Adam's face. Dean can't believe it's this easy (and he's not ignoring that bit about Kate being nearly in love with Dad – he's not! He's…prioritizing).

"You believe what you found?" Dean asks, "In the journal entries?"

Adam wordlessly reaches into his jeans pocket, pulling out a wad of folded paper. The creases of the folds are well defined – well used – and the paper itself looks soft with age. Adam offers them to Dean, and when he takes them, carefully opening those crucial pages, he recognizes his father's boxy, draftman's scrawl.

"I researched what was in there," Adam says softly. "It all matches up. It even fills in the holes in city records. Deputy Barton, who's mentioned in there? He was on the same case as Dad. They helped each other get the… the ghouls." He swallows hard, adam's apple bobbing like a cork. "I know you think I should be freaking out – but that's not me. I – I just feel like… All the crap he spun when we saw each other…I never felt like it fit. This _fits._"

And now there's a terrible desperate tone in his little brother's voice, one that is awful and familiar and _Sam__'__s_.

"Dean, you knew him."

Dean looks down at the pages in his hands again. "Clearly not as well as I thought."

"But better than we did. Why would he do this? Why would he lie to us?"

_Why would he lie to **me**?_

Dean sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. "To protect you," he tells Adam. "To keep you away from all the crap that me and Sam deal with every damn day. To let you be _normal_, Adam, like me and Sam can't be."

Adam slumps back in his chair, and Sorrel whines sympathetically. "Doesn't seem worth it."

Dean snorts a little, shaking his head. "Yeah, you say that now," he says lightly.

They sit in relatively comfortable silence, thinking, and letting the night noises fill the void.

"Adam, look," Dean finds himself saying after a while, "unless a job comes our way, Sam and I don't really have anywhere we have to be. You want us to stick around or…?"

Adam sits up. "No, yeah, that would be… that would be great!" He smiles, a little shyly. "I – I mean there's a lot I wanna know; about you guys, and Dad and…stuff."

Dean smiles back. Maybe this could actually work. "Sounds like a plan."

* * *

**AN2:** As I said, _bitch __to __write_. Also, bizarrely long... Let me know how I did, what you liked, what you didn't, etc.


	7. Great Southern Land

AN: So…long time no see guys. Um, in my defence, I'm trying to get a promotion, so… Enjoy?

* * *

_Great Southern Land**  
Seven**_

She's across the room before the second ring and gasping, "Hello?" into the receiver before the third.

"Hey." Sam is a little breathless himself, voice low on the other end of the line. "It's me."

Peggy slides down the wall until her arse hits the lino and fights back the stupidly relieved smile threatening to engulf her face. "I know. How's going?"

There's a sigh from Sam. "Well…we met them."

"And?"

He laughs a little. "Nosy. It was okay."

"Just okay?"

"Yeah…no. I don't know. God, Peggy, I can't even – Kate looks so much like Mom it's – I think it kind of got to Dean. Seriously, they could have been sisters."

"Must have been a shock," she murmurs, and aches inside, because she knows how Dean feels about their mother. She's seen his face when he looks at those pictures of her. The majority of the Winchester family albums are even now packed in their box beside Peggy's desk, and her awareness of them is sharp, prickling along her skin. It still hits her, whenever she looks at them, of the trust the boys have in her just by leaving that box in her care.

"It was," Sam murmurs back, and she knows he's seeing the moment again in his head. Playing it over. Reliving the shock, the comprehension of his father's interest. "It…it makes is harder, y'know? And easier, I guess, too. She's really nice, Peg. She's a good person. I think…I think she would have been good for Dad. Better, it they'd stayed together." He laughs, uncertain. "Feels kind of weird saying that…"

He needs distracting, she knows, or he'll start getting maudlin. "What's Adam like?"

Another soft laugh from Sam. "He's…God, he's one of us for sure, Peg. Y'know those missing pages from Dad's journal?"

"Yeah…"

"Dad must've hid them in their attic. Adam was up there looking through stuff and found the damn things."

"Jesus _Christ_," Peggy breathes. "Those entries would be…from a case? And he read them?"

"Yeah. I can't even…I found out what Dad's job was when I was eight, from Dean, and we've been doing this for fuck knows how long…to just find this out now, from a bunch of old papers…I can't even fathom it, Peg."

Peggy smiles. "I can. I mean, I found out about real ghosts from _Tara_, and she didn't even realize she'd told me." Sam laughs outright, and Peggy's smile widens. "Look, I know what you mean. I'd have a hard time of it if I figured my dad was off slaying evil behind my back, too, and I imagine I'd have even worse if I found out about it from…bits of an old book. But if he's anything like you and Dean…he'll be fine, Sam."

"…you think so?"

"Mm-hmm. And he's got you two now. That's always a bonus if you ask me."

There's a pause, and she can hear him breathing, gently.

"Sam?"

"Yeah," he says softly, "yeah, I just…" He takes deep breath and then gusts out, "I just…I miss you."

Peggy's insides coil hot and bright inside her. It's so stupid, to get so worked up and so hopeful and happy about those words, it's not wise or clever and it won't be good for her heart in the long run…but she just can't help it. She keeps falling fast over the small things about him, the important things, and then he says something like that and…

"Yeah," she whispers, "I miss you, too."

* * *

AN2: Short, I know, but it finishes on a nice note...and yes, I'm fickle and capricious and a dick, but I promise to update soon!


	8. Hey Little Girl

**AN:** Hey guys, sorry for the EPIC late post but this chapter pretty much hacked me off. The boys don't really want to play ball (hur hur hur) and I kept getting distracted by the novel of doom and my effing Uni papers. So OVER it. Anyway, here tis!

* * *

_Hey Little Girl**  
Eight**_

If anyone had ever told Dean that one day he would be playing soccer in a lake-fronted park one summer with both his brothers…

Well, Dean might not have laughed. He probably would have given you that sidelong look that meant he thought you were short a few and carefully backed away. Or he would have scoffed and glared and said he only had one brother and what the fuck are you even talking about?

And yeah, the above situation is in fact happening, right the hell now. And yes, Dean's having fun, and even better, Sam and Adam are having fun as well. _Fun_ isn't a word that often finds its way into the Winchester vocabulary, but Dean's happy to find it there. Moments like these take away from Sam's burgeoning mania, his desperation to find a way out of Dean's Deal. They let both of them forget, for a little while…

Dean drops down on the 'sidelines' and lets himself fall onto his back, breathing a little hard. Adam's seventeen, with all the inherent teenage energy, and of course his friends are the same age, and okay, Dean can admit it…he's not as young as he used to be.

And he kind of owes Sam an apology for ever calling soccer poor-man's football. This shit is _hard_, man, and _fast_. Dean wipes his wet forehead and throws an arm over his face against the sun.

There's a burst of laughter and a body drops down on the grass to his left. He lifts his arm and sees Adam's friend Denise there, looking similarly sweaty and over-warm, but decidedly less winded. Dean feels old all over again.

She's studying him carefully, measuring him up. It's a bit weird.

"Hey there," Dean says, for lack of anything else to say.

She smiles, like he's done something interesting. "Hi."

There's a pause. Dean continues to feel weirded out, and is about to try again when Denise blurts out, "So, are you for real?"

Dean stares back at her, a little disbelieving. She flushes, but to her credit maintains eye contact and keeps a straight face. She's serious, he can tell that much.

"Uh, about?" He has an idea, but he wants her to say it.

"About Adam. Are you really…I mean you're not going to…"

He watches her struggle, silently egging her on.

"I just don't want him to get hurt," she finishes in a rush.

"Me neither," he says softly.

"Yeah, I don't think your dad meant to hurt him either, but that didn't exactly pan out."

Dean opens his mouth, not knowing whether he's about to defend Dad or disclaim any similarity between them (and then bitterly wondering if he can do that honestly, considering certain circumstances) when Denise hurriedly adds:

"I'm not saying it to be mean, okay, I'm just…saying. Sometimes people hurt each other without meaning to, and I get that, I just don't want that to happen to Adam again. It was really hard when your dad just…dropped out of his life, y'know? They didn't see each other often, but I know he called and sent Adam stuff sometimes. He was like, _accessible_. And then just…nothing. Practically dropped off the face of the earth. That was really hard for Adam."

"And you had to watch him suffer through it."

She looks away, fidgeting with the laces of her sneakers. "Yeah."

Not for the first time, Dean wonders how fair this is; getting to know Adam like this, getting to care about him and maybe have him care about Dean and Sam in return, when in all likelihood Dean could be dead in under a year.

He sighs, and sits up on his elbows.

Here's the hard line; it's not fair. But Dean's dying, he knows it, even if Sam won't pony up and admit it, and he kinda wants to get as much out of this year as he can. He's given a lot to this family. Is it so wrong to want something back…?

"Denise…I'm going to tell you exactly what I told Adam, okay?"

She nods, watching him with wide blue eyes.

"Okay. So. Sam and me…we do the same job our dad did – you know what that is right?"

"Private detectives," Denise murmurs.

"Yeah. And it's not like in the old movies or whatever – this shit's dangerous, because the…people…we investigate don't want to be interfered with or turned in or discovered. These guys are ruthless and angry, and a lot of the time they're armed." He holds her eyes, like he did with Adam last night, and makes damn sure she understands. "We wanna be there for him, get to know him and be the best brothers we can; but the fact remains that the stuff we do could get us killed."

She nods, looks down and away. Goes to say something, but her eyes catch on the field where the others are still playing. Dean looks over…

Sam has the ball, and even after all these years it's not hard to see why he'd gotten a trophy for playing this game. Adam and Toby keep trying to bail him up at the 'sidelines' but Sam eels out of their grasp every time – right up until Adam nips in with some move right out of a kung-fu movie and flicks the ball out from under Sam's feet. A brief tussle ensues, both of them laughing as Toby shouts about how this is totally unprofessional, Adam!

They look so alike, now, in this moment, and it's a little hard to breathe.

"I'm just saying," Denise murmurs. "Don't get killed."

"Working on it," Dean lies.

* * *

**AN2:** Yeah, I don't know either. Opinions?


	9. Street Café

**AN:** Okay, enough with all the moochy maudlin crap and Disney-moments. It's time to get our huntin' groove on. Booyah. Man, I've been looking forward to writing this bit for AGES!

* * *

_Street Café**  
Nine**_

She emerges from her room around eight, hair a tumble weed of black curls and snarls, eyes at half-mast, and stumbles into the shower. She's out of the bathroom at quarter past and dressed by half.

Then she goes to put the tea on and it all goes to shit.

* * *

'Dani California' blares from Sam's phone. He grins as he answers and pointedly ignores Dean's snickers.

"Hey Peg."

Dean is nudging Adam in the ribs and murmuring undoubted unflattering explanations for Sam's behavior.

"Uh, hi, Sam," Peggy says, and Sam is instantly on alert.

"What's up?" he asks, and sees Dean start to pay attention, raising his eye brows and mouthing 'what?'

Sam shakes his head. Adam is looking between them over the Formica diner table; Kate was on an early shift, so Sam and Dean had taken their brother out for breakfast a la Winchester. On the phone Peggy is beginning to worry Sam.

"So," she says, going for casual, but sounding rather anxious, "I was about to put the tea on, and um, I-think-there's-something-in-my-vents-with-really-big-teeth."

"_**What**_?"

"It looks a little bit like a really angry wallaby crossed with a hedgehog. With bear teeth."

"Where are you now?" Sam asks urgently.

"…on my dining table."

"Peggy. Just. What?"

"Well, it jumps, okay? And it tried to eat Muss! I made for higher ground and this was the best I could do on short notice." There's a growl that Sam can hear even over the phone and an answering hiss. "Oh my god, cat, this is not the time to get offended! Stop aggravating the vent monster! He's getting territorial," she adds to Sam, sounding harried.

Sam can just picture it, and honestly, it's a little funny, except he's reasonably sure she's got a juvenile chupacabra in her air vents and that could legitimately eat her cat…although its Muss we're talking about, and this is a tomcat that in all likelihood runs a cat mafia and has the local dogs paying a protection racket in fresh rat meat.

It could hurt Peggy though.

"Okay, Peggy? Dean and I can't get there –"

"Clearly."

"Yeah, but we'll get ahold of someone in the area." He sees Dean take out his phone and dial Bobby. Bobby's bound to know someone. Although…he realizes he knows someone, actually. He scratches out a number on a napkin and shoves it at Dean. "Just hang in there, okay? Is there anything you can use as a weapon?"

"Uh, okay, I can probably climb across to the kitchen island and get one of the knives. But I do have the frying pan."

"…the frying pan."

"Hey, this thing's got a cast iron base. Not to be sneezed at."

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. Really? How is this his life? "Okay, you've got a cast iron frying pan and potentially a knife. Will you be okay for a little while?"

"Um, yeah…yeah I think so. Just uh…actually really glad I got dressed before I went to put the tea on…"

Sam closes his eyes briefly and smiles. "You're gonna be okay, Peg."

"Oh I know. Just send someone good, okay?"

* * *

"Chupacabra's are real?"

"Just about everything's real," Sam tells Adam, and Dean remembers when that was his line. "Except Big Foot. And unicorns."

"And angel's," Dean adds, dialing the number Sam gave him.

Sam scowls. "We don't know that for sure."

"Yeah, yeah –" The ringing stops and a worrying familiar voice says, "You've got three minutes. Go."

"Uh…" Fuck.

"Who is this?"

"Jo? Jo Harvelle?"

A muttered, "for fucksake…" Then at normal volume, "Hi Dean. Long time no see. Who gave you my number?"

Ohhh, he is _so __screwed_. She is _not_ happy to hear from him and really, he has no one to blame but himself but he is just going to _murder_ Sam for this. "Uh. Sam did." Who's got two thumbs and is about to completely fraticided? _That __guy._

"Awesome," Jo deadpans. "Why?"

"He was on the phone to a friend at the time. She's uh, kind of in a jam, and we're on the other side of the country."

"You need a favor."

"For a friend."

"Uh-huh. Hold that thought for two seconds."

"Jo –"

Dean hears some rustling, Jo talking to someone else – sounds like an older guy – and then…

**BOOM**

"Jo? Jo!" Sam and Adam look alarmed. Dean's right there with them.

"Hi, sorry," Jo says, back on the line. "Vampires."

"What the hell?"

"Unwad your boxers, Deano. They were holed up in a barn, so we blew up the barn."

"You – you – _what_?"

"What was all this about a friend in need?"

Dean reacquaints himself with words and the logical order thereof. "She, uh, she's in LA. There's a young chupacabra in her vents."

"Really?" She sounds…enthused. "Been looking for a chupa hunt. What's this friend's name?"

"Peggy Patcher. Look, Jo, she's stuck on her dining table with a frying pan while this thing picks fights with her cat, so –"

"Sooner rather than later, I got it, Dean. Text me an address. I can be in LA in less than an hour."

She hangs up on him.

Dean puts his head down on the table very, very carefully.

* * *

**AN2:** I do love Jo :D That woman does not take crap from anyone, least of all you, Mr. Winchester. As always, your thoughts and opinions are like gumdrops and rainbows to me.


	10. Over The Line

**AN:** Subtly, thy name is not Winchester.

* * *

_Over The Line**  
Ten**_

The phone's going when they get back to the Milligan place. Adam sprints from the front door to get it in time and Sam barely manages to catch Sorry before the big dog can charge down the steps and tackle Dean; it's getting to be a habit with him. Sam wonders why people's pets are all of sudden in love with his big brother. First Muss, now Sorry, and there was a standard poodle in east Texas this one time that followed him around for _days_.

"How do you even have her number?" Dean demands as Sam shuts the front door.

Sam shrugs, all innocence. "I dunno…look, man, we've kept in contact with Peggy, and I thought, you know, we don't exactly have that many friends. Might be an idea to look after the ones we do have. I thought, _what __if __it __were__ Peg_, and I called her, apologized."

Dean looks awkward. "Okay, uh, so…what'd she say, back then?"

Sam smirks, "what, about you?"

"No!"

He shakes his head at Dean, who just scowls back. "Not a lot, at the time," Sam says anyway. "She was still kind of shaken up. Said she'd keep in touch though, since it made sense to. And it's worked out for us now, hasn't it?"

"…right."

Adam's frowning at the kitchen bench when they make their way to the back of the house. When he hangs up, the frown has developed into concern.

"That was Mom. She said one of Dad's friends came into the ER today."

Dean straightens up from rubbing Sorry's ears. "What?"

"Dad's journal entries, about the ghoul? They said that he got help from a deputy called Joe Barton," Adam says. "He's the guy in their trauma ward now being treated for…for bites and lacerations. Mom was freaked out because the bites look human."

"Shit," Dean mutters fervently.

Sam looks over at him. "You think it's –"

"Bite marks, and going after someone who hunted with dad? I'd say yeah, ghouls."

"I thought he got it, though?" Adam asks, frowning. "The desecrations stopped, and dad left afterward."

"Yeah," Sam says, mind going a mile a minute. "But, what if he only thought there was one? What if there were others, hiding until now?"

"And now, what? They're back for revenge?"

Sam swears his heart skips a beat. "If that's true," he says carefully, "then there next target…"

"_Mom_," Adam breathes, face white.

"Everyone back in the car!" Dean says.

* * *

"Uh, hi guys," Kate says as her son and his brothers barrel into the ER. "Where's the fire?"

"Mom, can we talk privately please," Adam says in a rush, then sort of herds her into one of the triage alcoves, Sam and Dean crowding in behind and drawing the curtain.

"Guys, _Adam_, what's going on?" she demands.

"Ah, slight problem," Dean says, casting a look around one edge of the curtain and shooting a suspicious look at a bewildered candy striper. "You know that guy? The one who got torn up and knew dad?"

"Yeah…"

"Well, uh…" Dean has apparently run out of steam.

"We think we know what– _who_ did it," Sam says.

"Have you spoken to the police?" Kate says severely. "No? Then why are you telling me?"

"Well, um – Kate, look, we think you might be their next target."

She raises an eyebrow at them. "What?"

"Well, I mean," Sam tries. "We…we were looking at dad's notes on the case, y'know, and ah, apparently, this whole attack on Joe Barton thing looks really similar to stuff that was done to those desecrated bodies."

Oh.

Well, crap.

"This is about the whole ghoul thing isn't it?" asks Kate with a sigh.

* * *

**AN:** Didn't see that shit comin' didja?


	11. Taking The Town

**AN:** Hur hur hur...

* * *

_Taking the Town**  
Eleven**_

However she feels – or doesn't feel – about Dean Winchester, Jo counts Sam as one her of her friends. Even if Dean didn't call, Sam did. Sure it took him a while, but Jo knows that a Winchester's whole world is his brother and that both of them have had a lot going on lately.

Some of those rumors are quite frankly terrifying – especially the ones confirmed by Bobby Singer.

In any case, if they have a friend in LA who needs rescuing, Jo's all for it. It's a little annoying that the elevator in the apartment doesn't work today, but secures her duffle on her shoulder and hikes up the four flights of stairs until she gets to 4A.

She knocks twice and a voice calls out from the other side, "hello?"

"Hi, is that Peggy Patcher?"

"Yeah, Jo right? Sam's friend?"

"Yeah. Door unlocked?"

"Uh, no…spare key's in the crack in the lintel, the one that looks like a wing."

"Go it, thanks."

Jo cautiously opens the door – and Dean wasn't kidding. Peggy Patcher is standing on her dining table with a huge black tomcat tucked under her left arm and a frying pan gripped in her right hand. She looks harassed.

"So, did –" Jo starts to say.

"Look out!" Peggy shrieks, and Jo shrieks too as a dark, snarling blur flies across the floor in her direction. She slams the door and hurls herself forward and _up_!

And then she's standing on the table beside Peggy.

And her bag is sitting against the front door, mocking her with is unreachable closeness.

"Crap," they say in unison.

* * *

For all their urgency getting to the hospital, things progress rather sedately afterwards. Kate is not a woman to be rushed; she sends them back to the waiting room and chats to the nurse at the front desk as she fills out some paperwork and explains that there's been a situation at home and she's going to take a leave day. Sam watches his brothers as both of them keep eagle eyes on her. Dean's left knee is going that irritable-bounce thing; he's impatient, but something about Kate puts them off hurrying her up.

She collects them and they all troop back to the car.

"Now," she says, taking the front seat next to Dean. "What's going on with these ghouls?"

"Mom, hang on, how do you even _know_ about them?"

Kate frowns. "Your father told me, obviously. I'm assuming you and Sam are hunters, too?" she directs at Dean.

"Uh, yeah. We were raised to it."

Kate nods but doesn't push. "Well, that makes things easier. Look, when John came in all torn up I took one look at those bite marks and knew I'd never get a straight answer out of him. They were so close to human and he was being so evasive…"

"So, wait, he _didn__'__t_ tell you?"

"Oh, he did," Kate says dryly, "after I bullied as much as I could out of Joe Barton and then confronted him. He wasn't happy about being cornered and tried his damnedest to wriggle out of it, but that stubborn streak of yours isn't just from your father," she adds to Adam, who grins. "The whole thing was taken care before I even knew anything about it, or we thought it was."

"Only Dad and Barton missed a few," Dean mutters. "Not like him."

"No," Kate allows, "but then he was probably a little distracted."

"_Mom!_"

"Oh, not with _me_," Kate says, rolling her eyes. "He was anxious the whole time he was in town. Probably worrying about you boys, now that I think about it."

Sam doesn't say anything, but he knows that from looking through their dad's journal that he and Dean had been dropped off in Blue Earth with Pastor Jim not long after the incident with the Shtriga. Dad was probably worried about the only _other_ case he'd never finished…

Once they're back at the house, Kate quickly changes out of her scrubs and they convene in the dining room. Adam spreads a map of Windom and the surrounding area on the table and Sam brings the weapons bags from the car while Dean starts earmarking possible den sites. He pegs Windom's two major cemeteries, St Frances Xavier and Lakeview, as well as Amo, Philpot and the Windom Memorial Gardens.

"This is a lot of ground to cover…"

Sam nods. "And that's not even counting some of the places in the parks they could have holed up."

"This is why they're so hard to track, huh?" Adam murmurs, and Dean rubs a hand over his mouth as he nods.

"Yeah. And I don't like the idea of me and Sam hunting around for these things and leaving you guys open to an attack."

"Not totally open," Kate says quietly. "Your dad did more than blow through town and knock me up you know. He did teach me how to handle a gun before he took off into the sunset."

All three men look up at her with raised eyebrows. Dean grins, flashing back on when he and Sam first met Peggy. They'd been a in a similar situation actually; caught between playing bodyguard and hunting the guy controlling a bunch of angry ghosts aimed at Peg and her co-workers, Dean had wondered aloud if they should give Peggy a gun for self-defence. She'd sat there in her hospital bed, not twelve hours after almost drowning and said, "okay."

"Firearms-capable ladies," Dean says, grinning at Sam, who looks equally amused. "Thing of beauty, ain't it?"

* * *

"Really not how I saw my day turning out," Jo mutters, panning the apartment's floor with her .45 Firestar.

"Join the club," Peggy says, and they share a rueful look.

"So, Peggy Patcher, what do you do when you're not under siege from errant goat-suckers?"

"Uh, I'm technically a screenwriter right now, but hoping to work on my prose after this job wraps up."

"Seriously, you work in the movies?"

"Seriously," Peggy says drily, thinking of _Hell __Hazers__ II_'s initial plot and dialogue, "it's not that great. I'm working on a b-grade that is, or was, barely worthy of the title. Like, we're talking straight to DVD, bottom of the new release heap here."

Jo grins. "Eh," she says with a shrug, "no big deal to me. I wanted to be a stuntwoman for a little while there."

"I can totally see that – _oh __my __god_, there it is."

The creature is hunkered down on one side of her kitchen island, back bristling with tan and black quills, black lips twitching to give occasional glimpses of those enormous teeth.

"Holy _crap_, it's big." Jo looks amazed, but thankfully not too worried.

"I thought it was a juvenile."

"It is… See the tan banding on its quills? Means it's still got its defense venom in there. Its technically still a baby…but a really, really, ridiculously huge one."

As though it knows it's being discussed, the chupa's beady red eyes switch onto the girls and glower at them as a low, wet rumble spills from its impressive jaws.

"Fuuuuuck…" Peggy draws out softly. "How intelligent are these things?"

"Think angry Labrador," Jo says, not taking her eyes (or her gun) off the chupa. "He knows we see him. Knows we don't like him much either."

"You said something about venom?"

"Uh, yeah." She darts a rueful sidelong look at Peggy. "One of those quills jabs you, it starts out about as bad as a bee-sting – like a distraction so the baby chupa can get away – but the longer you leave it untreated the worse the reaction gets. You can go into anaphylactic shock and swell up so far your throat closes."

"Oh, _awesome_."

"Pretty much. I've got an EpiPen and antihistamines if that happens, but…"

"They're in the bag."

"Yeah."

At that moment there's a brisk knock on the door a voice sings out, "Peggy!"

Peggy's stomach drops. "Oh, fuck. LOUISE, DON'T –"

Too late; Lou throws the door open and the chupacabra bellows hoarsely and goes for her knees. Peggy sees her friend's eyes go wide as saucers before she shrieks in alarm, door slamming behind her, and launches herself –

– up onto the table with Peggy and Jo.

"What the FUCK is that?" Lou demands at a pitch that seems designed to summon dogs. The chupa expresses its displeasure with another bellow and wallaby-hops back to the kitchen island, where it sits shredding a fallen couch cushion and glaring malevolently at the girls.

"That's a chupacabra," Jo tells Lou, "and I'm Jo, by the way."

"She's um, here to help with that." Peggy puts in, waving the frying pan in the general direction of the slavering, grumpy beast.

"Pleasure," Lou says, still a little pale. "I'm Louise. I work with Peggy." She darts a look at the chupa. "I'm guessing lunch is a bust."

"Just a little." Peggy looks guiltily at Lou. "Sorry, I was going to call but, um…"

"Things got a little out of hand?" Lou says drily, softening it with a smile. She's getting her colour back, which is good.

"Something like that. Jo, what on earth are we going to do about this thing?"

"Well," says Jo, getting a speculative gleam in her eye that bodes ill for the chupa and the universe in general. "I've got kind of a plan…"

* * *

**AN2:** Love it, hate it or just don't care?


	12. Don't Believe Anymore

**AN:** Is that an update? Good lord, I think it is. Wow. How did THAT happen :D****

* * *

****_Don't Believe Anymore_

_**Twelve**_

"A trap?" say Sam, giving his brother the interrogative look that says, 'you're a little bit mad, you know.'

"A trap," Dean confirms. "Look, we wanna do this quick and clean, right? And there are too many places to search for these assholes to do that, so we need to get the mountain to Mohammed or whatever."

"I'd rather be the mountain," Adam says. He's sitting on the couch next to his mom; the pair of them watching as Sam slowly takes apart, cleans and puts his Taurus back together. Kate's going to do her Browning next under Sam's exacting eyes, and Dean's got a Colt in the weapons' bag for Adam to get acquainted with. "Bigger, y'know."

"Uh-huh," Dean says, raising his eyebrows. "Hate to break it to ya, kiddo, but in the human-monster relationship, we're mostly Mohammed."

* * *

"So, this trap," Lou says, "how does that work?"

"You know those cartoons where Wil E. Coyote tries to catch the Roadrunner by putting corn under a propped up box?"

Lou and Peg stare at her blankly. Peggy raises one incredulous eyebrow. "Really?"

* * *

"So it's the old baited bear-trap deal with a pincer movement thrown in?" Adam says.

"It's an effective and well planned battle maneuver," Dean corrects. "But basically, yeah."

"Great," says Adam. He looks between his brothers. "So…let's bait the trap already."

Sam smiles and holds out a handgun.

"First," he says, "you're gonna prove you can shoot."

* * *

"You can shoot?" Jo asks Peggy.

"Rifles," Peggy answers. "I can manage a shotgun, if you've got one, though in a residential building…"

Jo screws up her face. "Yeah, hence the trap. I'm really hoping it won't come to firing anything…"

* * *

"It's going to come to shots being fired," Sam says as they hike out a few hours later. "It's the only way this is going to end."

Adam looks uncertain, but nods once, definitive. "I know. Head shots, right? It's in Dad's journal."

"Yeah." There's a pause as they continue to make their way around the lake. The graveyard to their right is still lit up, unshadowed by the trees overhanging the trail. Sam glances ahead to where Kate and Dean are talking in low, light voices. From what he can make out of their tone, they're teasing each other, keeping the mood light. Most likely, Dean is keeping Kate from freaking out – or thinks he is, since Kate strikes Sam as a woman to keep her head in a crises. She's certainly kept it so far, where most others might have lost it. He looks back to Adam. "You gonna be okay? With all this?"

Adam flicks a glance at him, a rueful smile curling his mouth. "Yeah," he says, voice low. "Yeah, I'm good. Just…not how I saw my day turning out, y'know?"

Sam smiles back. "I seem to hear that phrase a lot," he murmurs. "Only for you I think you'd be justified in using 'not how I saw my family turning out.'"

Adam shrugs. "Who would though?"

"Point."

"It's always like this, right? You guys come to town, kill the monster and leave?"

Sam exhales through his nose in a sigh. "Sometimes." Adam looks a question at him, and Sam sighs again. "We have friends in some places. We stay with them sometimes, in between jobs."

"Like that girl, Peggy?"

Sam clears his throat. "Yeah. Her. And Jo, and her mom Ellen. There's Bobby, too. We grew up calling him Uncle Bobby, and he's someone we're close to."

"So he was a friend of Dad's?"

Sam nods. "For a while. They, uh, had a falling out at one point." He sighs. Dad had done that a lot, but he's not about to tell Adam that.

"So," Adam says overly casual, "when you guys finish here…you'll go? I mean, I know you're sticking around for a few days; Dean said it was okay, but…you'll come back after that, right?"

He sounds so uncertain, though Sam knows he's trying to hide it. Sam offers him an easy smile. "'Course."

Adam nods, accepting it as easily as it's given and they walk in silence for a while, until they catch up with Dean and Kate.

"Keep walking, keep smiling," Dean murmurs, and just like that the hair on Sam's neck is sticking up. He can see the tension around Kate's eyes. "Hear that?"

"No birds," Sam whispers, glancing casually around him at the trees.

"Yeah, and my neck's been itching for the past two minutes," Dean mutters, keeping his face open and easy. "Fuck. Think they followed us?"

"It's looking that way."

Dean plasters a cheerful smile on his face and claps Adam on the back. "Looks like we'll be moving that whole battle plan thing forward."

* * *

Distracting the chupa while they bait their trap is surprisingly easy – and rather unintentional.

A pair of blackbirds land on the fire escape outside the open living room window, singing happily.

The chupa raises its spines, puffs out its chest and bares its prodigious teeth, advancing softly on the unsuspecting wildlife.

"Now," Jo hisses.

Peggy slips down from the table, depositing Muss on the kitchen bench and quickly snatching up a packet of defrosting beef mince from the sink. She tears the packet open as quietly as possibly while Lou tip-toes down and retrieves Jo's bag, while Jo keeps her gun aimed at the chupa's turned back.

Peggy puts the uncovered mince on the table and then, on silent feet, slips over to the bookshelf behind the dining table and begins unloading the steel mesh storage bin there. It's just big enough and the two short sides are thin steel plate – but still enough to deflect quills.

Once unloaded, Peggy beckons Jo over. Jo hands the handgun to Lou, takes a second one with a silencer from her duffle bag and gets down to help Peggy turn the improvised cage over. Keeping one eye on the chupa, now crouched to spring at the birds, they wedge the storage bin up with the footstool, put the bait down and –

There's a roar of frustration from the chupa, and the girls look up in time to see Muss leap over the chupa and land just shy of the two birds.

"Muss, no!" Peggy gasps, too late.

The chupa turns, red eyes ablaze. It lets out a second roar and shoots towards them, too fast. Jo fires, but hits the quills and the armoring below it. The chupa ducks away from her – and sinks its teeth into Peggy's right calf.

Peggy screams, grasping for Jo's hand as she's dragged backwards and into the mouth of the air vent.

* * *

**AN:** Uh-oh...how will our hero's get out of this jam!


End file.
